


Footprints by the Lethe

by lily_winterwood



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 50 First Dates Fusion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Memory Loss, well a 50 first dates au where the writer has only watched the trailer bc she hates adam sandler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-12 23:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16005278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_winterwood/pseuds/lily_winterwood
Summary: Yuuri’s video of him skating ‘Stay Close to Me’ goes viral, and in that moment Viktor’s life flashes before him. The story is simple: he goes to Japan, he becomes Yuuri’s coach, he wins Yuuri’s respect and love. Then blah, blah, something something gold medal in the GPF, a wedding, and happily ever after. It’s perfect.Until it isn’t.(A 50 First Dates-inspired AU)





	Footprints by the Lethe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [timewaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timewaster/gifts).



> So... this was sorta supposed to be a _50 First Dates_ AU, except I dislike Adam Sandler movies. So it's a mix of the trailer, some case studies of [actual patients](https://nationalpost.com/news/world/reverse-groundhog-day-u-k-man-wakes-up-every-day-thinking-its-march-14-2005-and-doctors-have-no-idea-why) with [anterograde amnesia](https://web.archive.org/web/20150721145107/http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Groundhog-Day-Woman-rare-amnesia-wakes-thinking/story-26919880-detail/story.html), and personal experience. 
> 
> Also thanks to [feelslikefire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelslikefire/pseuds/feelslikefire/) for help with the medical aspects!

The only thing Viktor remembers about his grandmother is the smell of her potpourri: warm cloves and cinnamon, like if a Christmas cookie could hug. Even years after her death the corners of her dacha seem to echo with the imprint of that scent, burning itself into him with each visit.

He walks the lake shore now, watching the waters ripple against the pebbles, lazy and calm and clear. The walls of his grandmother’s dacha bear pictures of him with her, sitting on her lap, walking by her side. He was once her favourite, but he doesn’t remember her at all.

Funny how that seems to work.

* * *

Viktor grew up with the salt air of the sea and the forlorn cry of gulls. He also grew up with the chill of the ice rink, the sting of every fall echoing in his bones, the rush of adrenaline that accompanies each successful jump.

He has not grown up with the warmth in his heart that usually comes from being loved, though he knows the people around him support and care for him. Yakov was paid, first by his parents, and now by him. His ‘friends’ only talk to him during competition season, if he wins. And everyone else he meets at the top of the world want something from him in return for their kindness.

Even the beautiful, drunken banquet boy he meets in Sochi wants him to be his coach. It’s a playful suggestion, and he probably doesn’t mean it. But there’s no other reason for him to ask, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s one of the biggest Viktor Nikiforov fanboys Viktor’s ever seen. Yuuri Katsuki is full of life, brown eyes shining almost amber under the ballroom lights as he spins Viktor in his arms, and Viktor almost forgets to hold onto his heart. Almost.

 _Yuuri will wake in the morning and forget_ , Viktor knows, as he tucks him into his hotel bed. _He just wants the novelty of his celebrity crush coaching him next season_. Viktor himself _has_ been considering a change of pace, some time off the ice. Coaching someone could, in fact, be the change he’s looking for.

But hiatuses are dangerous for rankings and records, and sponsors only exist if you win.

Yuuri will forget, and it’s in Viktor’s best interest to forget, too.

He leaves his number on a pad of hotel stationery anyway.

* * *

Yuuri’s video of him skating ‘Stay Close to Me’ goes viral, and in that moment Viktor’s life flashes before him. The story is simple: he goes to Japan, he becomes Yuuri’s coach, he wins Yuuri’s respect and love. Then blah, blah, something something gold medal in the GPF, a wedding, and happily ever after. It’s perfect.

Until it isn’t.

Until Yuuri takes one look at him in his family onsen and screams blue murder, and the wedding plans immediately crumble into ash around Viktor’s ears.

“Viktor? What are you doing here?” Yuuri asks weakly when he gets a hold of himself again. Viktor feels his cheeks warm, and not because of the steam from the onsen.

“I just said I was going to coach you, aren’t I?” he wonders, pulling up an expression which he hopes looks reasonably smooth and professional considering his lack of clothing.

“Why?” asks Yuuri, the ever-shifting steam clouding him from view. Viktor steps closer, his heartbeat racing with every step.  

“I saw your video,” he replies, “of ‘Stay Close to Me’. I thought you’d posted that because you wanted me to see it?”

Yuuri’s response tugs the world out from under his feet, shatters the rules of his universe — and a little bit of his heart. He steps closer, his eyes misted with confusion.

“What video?”

Everything stops.

* * *

“The one of you skating my routine,” Viktor explains again, hours later. The shreds of his dignity are wrapped around him with a green jinbei. Across the dining table from him, Yuuri shakes his head.

“I really don’t know what you mean,” he says apologetically. From next to him, Mari, a woman with bleached tips and a cigarette tucked behind her ear, emits throat-slicing vibes at Viktor. He plows on anyway.

“Are you sure? I just thought maybe you remembered your request to me in Sochi and wanted me to come and coach you after all, so here I am.” He opens his arms, shrugging. Yuuri’s ears turn red as he looks down at his hands.

“I’m really honoured,” he says, “and if you do want to coach me, I would love it, but I don’t know why you would.”

“Why not?” wonders Viktor.

Yuuri’s expression grows pained. “I need to go,” he says, and excuses himself. Viktor moves to follow, but he finds his path blocked by Mari, who leads him to an empty banquet room piled with his boxes.

“I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into,” she tells him. Viktor stretches, looking around the room with a skip in his heart and ice in his gut.

“You make it sound like your brother’s dangerous,” he remarks.

Mari huffs. “Maybe not dangerous,” she agrees, “but there are some things about him that…” she sighs, rubbing her forehead. Viktor counts the beats of his heart, and waits.

Mari shakes her head and plucks out the cigarette from behind her ear. “Want one?” she asks. Viktor shakes his head, but gestures for her to continue. There’s a flicker of flame, and moments later smoke fills the air around them.

“My brother’s been your fan for a long time,” Mari says after a moment. “If this is all just some sort of… _joke_ , I’d advise you to stop now.”

“Why would you think I was joking about coaching him?” asks Viktor.

Mari blows smoke at him. The silence stretches, hazy and thick. Finally, she sighs and asks:

“How much do you know about his injury at Nationals?”

Viktor quirks an eyebrow. “I heard it was accidental,” he says, “and that he made a full recovery but couldn’t compete.” Everything else he had dismissed as rumour. Yuuri Katsuki could still skate, and that’s the important part.

Turns out, that wasn’t what should’ve concerned him most.

“It was sabotage,” says Mari bluntly, and the breath flees Viktor’s lungs at that. Sabotage? But who? “There was something in his water bottle, and then he slipped and fell on the ice, got a concussion. He’s had anterograde amnesia ever since.”

“Something in his water bottle?” echoes Viktor, his hands flexing slightly in his lap.

Mari nods solemnly. “Benzo-something-something. He was disoriented even before the concussion. He recovered from that physically but sometimes we have to take him to a neurologist to get the memory thing checked.”

“How bad is the memory loss?”

“It’s anterograde,” says Mari, her tone suggesting that she just knows the word and not quite its meaning. “He doesn’t really remember anything from after his accident.”

“Nothing?” breathes Viktor.

Mari nods.

Viktor’s knees give out a little; he steadies himself with one of his boxes. “I thought he was cleared to skate.”

“His old coach said he was taking the rest of last season and this season off to recover,” replies Mari. “But he goes skating every day anyway, like he’s still in training.” she sighs. “Still, I’m sure he’ll understand if you don’t want to take on a student who won’t remember anything you teach him. And if he doesn’t… he’ll forget about it the next day.”

Viktor considers it, looking at the piles of boxes around him and Makkachin’s silhouette through the paper-screen door. He shakes his head.

“If Yuuri wants to skate — if he wants to win — then I’ll stay,” he says, and sets to unpacking his boxes.

That night, he goes to bed with an inexplicable lump in his throat. Though this is the closest he’s been to Yuuri since Sochi, somehow it also feels like the farthest.

* * *

In the morning, it becomes apparent just how much he’s bitten off.

“Viktor Nikiforov!” Yuuri says with quiet, polite surprise at the breakfast table. He peers wide-eyed at Viktor from behind his glasses, his head tilted quizzically. “Are — are you in Hasetsu on vacation? It’s good to see you!”

Viktor’s knees almost give way, though he catches himself and quickly kneels onto the cushion set for him at the low breakfast table. “I’m… I’m here on business,” he says. “Coaching?”

Yuuri’s smile is as sweet as the cherry blossoms falling outside the window. “It’s good of you to come help out at Ice Castle,” he replies, kneeling at his spot next to him. Viktor’s breath flees him, and not just because the morning light shines amber in Yuuri’s eyes.

He looks over at where Mrs Katsuki and Mari are watching him, and wonders if his confusion is evident on his face. Across the table, Yuuri finishes peeling a clementine and hands him a slice.

“For you, Viktor-san,” he says sweetly, chewing thoughtfully at his own.

Viktor exhales, and bites into the fruit. It’s both a little sour and a little sweet.

* * *

The kind-eyed woman working the desk at Ice Castle Hasetsu looks at Viktor with something he very much doesn’t want to think is pity. “It’s so nice of you to come and train him,” she says. “Most people wouldn’t want to teach someone who forgets their name every morning.”

“Does the amnesia affect his skating?” asks Viktor.

Yuuko Nishigori shakes her head. “Most of it is muscle memory from years of training. But the only routine he can skate is yours, because he was working on it prior to Nationals.”

“That’s all I need to know,” replies Viktor, as Yuuri pokes his head out of the rink doors with an expectant smile. “I’m going to help him win the Grand Prix Final, amnesia or no amnesia.”

“The skating world thinks he’s as good as retired,” Yuuko says.

“Not me,” declares Viktor, and follows Yuuri through the doors.

Out on the ice, Yuuri is fluid, graceful. He dances absently to some unknown tune, tracing intricate figures in the ice. Viktor asks him to perform some jumps, which he readily does, though Viktor’s own heart stutters a little whenever it looks like he’s going to fall.

“Does the ISU know about your amnesia?” he asks during a break. Yuuri brushes his hair out of his eyes, contemplates the question, and shrugs. With a sigh, Viktor pulls up the news articles about Yuuri’s accident at Nationals, and flicks through them.

The ISU knows about the sabotage. They’ve tightened security measures to try and catch the saboteur. Yuuri is cleared to skate, but apprehension still sits in Viktor’s chest, squeezing at his heart. He tries to pry it loose.

“I want to be your coach this season,” he tells Yuuri. Yuuri licks his lips.

“Celestino Cialdini is my coach,” he says.

“But he’s not here, is he?” Yuuri’s cheeks flush at that, so Viktor barrels on. “What do you do every morning so that you know why you’re in Hasetsu instead of training for Japanese Nationals?”

“I have videos,” replies Yuuri. “The neurologists recorded me telling myself about the accident. I play it every morning.”

“Then I’ll do that, too,” says Viktor. “If you want me to be your coach, I’ll record a video every morning to let you know what I’m doing here and what we’re working on. Is that okay?”

Yuuri’s eyes are wide, his lips slightly parted. Viktor remembers the banquet night again, and the way Yuuri had smiled up at him with eyes hazed by drink. Yuuri nods, and Viktor’s heart skips a beat.

“We’re going to win, Yuuri,” he says, and feels it in his bones.

* * *

Then Yuri Plisetsky shows up, and it gets more complicated.

Viktor assigns them variations on the same theme. Agape and Eros, formed from the same notes, the same DNA. Yuri grasps the technique, but not the concept. Yuuri flounders at both.  

“Just watch,” Viktor instructs him as he hands off his phone to Yuuko and asks her to record him. The guitar starts as soon as he’s centre ice, fluidly retracing the steps of their dance at the banquet all those months ago. Giving Yuuri this piece had been more than trying to get him out of his comfort zone.

Yuuri remembering him at all is a wild hope, but Viktor feels it in his chest anyway as he skates through the routine, feeling Yuuri’s eyes fixed firmly on him.

“Every time you skate it’s like watching art in motion,” Yuuko sighs when Viktor comes over to take his phone back from her. “I’m so glad you’re here. Please take care of him.”

Viktor feels an inexplicable lump in his throat. “I’ll try my best,” he promises.

* * *

“ _Good morning, Yuuri! I’m Viktor Nikiforov, your coach. This is Yuri Plisetsky, your current rinkmate. We’re training together for the next season, and are currently working on our short programmes. Yours is to ‘On Love: Eros’, which goes like this_ …”

Viktor can hear the music playing at the breakfast table. Yuuri is sitting there, studiously concentrating on the video Viktor had sent him this morning.

(Yuri had edited it for him. Viktor owes him ramen.)

When it’s done, Yuuri looks up and smiles at the two of them. “I guess we’re working together, then,” he says politely. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Viktor can see Yuri tuck a sigh into his natto.

They fall into a rhythm. Every morning, Yuuri watches videos that catch him up to speed with them. Every afternoon, he diligently works out the steps of his routine like he’s trying to build a sandcastle, hoping against hope to make it last past the oncoming tide of the next day. Viktor watches, with his heart in his throat, as Yuuri attempts jump after jump, carves step sequences with steely, methodical concentration. His desperation to relearn the mechanics of the routine leaves the presentation of eros itself by the wayside.

Viktor knows that’s a losing strategy. Yuri’s technical skills are stronger, and he has a functioning memory on his side. Yuuri’s old strength in presentation is nowhere to be found, despite all of Viktor’s attempts to bring out the sensuality he remembers from Sochi. Yuuri’s ability to embody his music has been with him since before the accident. It’s just a question of how to get it out.

“I don’t get it,” says Yuri one night, as they sit side-by side on the beach. “What makes you want to drop everything you’ve worked for to coach some loser in bumfuck nowhere, Japan?”

Viktor looks out at Yuuri, barefoot in the surf ahead with Makkachin. Earlier in the evening they’d played with sparklers; the remnants of the sticks now linger with the firewood burning in the pit. The call of crickets in distant trees echoes out among the waves. It’s all so peaceful, at a pace Viktor is unused to after years in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.

“He’s not a loser,” he says.

“He doesn’t remember that night. He doesn’t even remember your _name_.”

Yuuri laughs as he ruffles Makkachin’s fur, turning back to smile at them. Viktor has never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of Yuuri’s eyes under a bright moonlit sky. How can a man be so unaware of his own charms?

“He skated ‘Stay Close to Me’.” Viktor unclenches his hands, runs them through the fine grains of sand at their feet. Yuri grabs a piece of driftwood and starts to doodle. “There was something in the way he took the story I was trying to tell and… made it _better_.”

“He chokes on one jump, he chokes on the rest. What the hell are you going to do then?” demands Yuri. “What the hell are you gonna do when he folds in on himself and holes up in a fucking bathroom to sob his eyes out about how he’s failed everyone?”

Viktor blinks. “I… He won’t do that.”

“You think, because he hit his head and forgets about you every morning, that he’s _not_ going to do that again?” Yuri rolls his eyes. “Come back to Russia, old man. You could coach someone who’s more likely to win the gold.”

Viktor grits his teeth. “We’ll see about that.”

Yuri shrugs. “Whatever. When I win Onsen on Ice, you’re going to have to do it anyway.”

* * *

To Viktor’s immense (and a little guilty) relief, Yuri loses Onsen on Ice.

He knows it from the instant Yuuri steps out onto the ice, under the glare of all the spotlights and local fans screaming his name. From the first refrains of the guitar to the final flourish of the violins, Yuuri is eros personified, capturing a graceful sensuality that ensnares Viktor’s breath within his chest.

How he’d managed to grasp the concept at what feels like the eleventh hour is a mystery that the smug grin on Minako’s face should probably be able to explain, but Viktor is too busy riding the high of being able to stay in Hasetsu with Yuuri for at least until the Grand Prix Finals to properly care about that. A couple of months will be nothing soon enough, he knows, but in the meantime, he can wake every morning to the sound of the video playing in the room next door, and see Yuuri’s sleep-worn expression at the breakfast table. He can spend his days practicing with Yuuri, figuring out what makes him tick as both a skater and a person.

It’s a little victory at a moment where he needed it — the faintest glimmer of hope in the sea of Yuuri’s memory. Perhaps if they continue, they may have a chance of winning the Grand Prix after all.

Yuuri spends the days after running the short programme by rote. Sometimes he’s attentive, eager; other times he can barely stand to look Viktor in the eyes. Whatever grip Viktor has on the enigma that is Yuuri Katsuki always feels tenuous, like trying to hold onto a cliff’s edge with the rock crumbling beneath him.

He doesn’t mind falling. He’s done it so many times already.

* * *

Viktor dreams of the shoreline of his grandmother’s dacha, dreams of the cries of the birds, the ripples of waters along the shore. The memory of her potpourri mixes with the salt tang of the air in Saint Petersburg and the shadows of gulls across the canals.

The cries of the gulls in Hasetsu are similar, and the ocean is much the same sparkling hue, and next to him Yuuri sits tucked against his knees, small and uncertain. “What do you want me to be to you?” Viktor asks him. Yuuri runs the morning’s video over again on his phone.

“You say that you’re my coach. So you should be my coach,” he replies.

“But if I’m going to be your coach, that means you’re going to be a champion,” Viktor says. He turns to look at Yuuri again, tries to measure the curvature of his spine as it hunches against his legs. “Do you want this?”

“To win?” asks Yuuri. “I…” He trails off, drawing his knees tighter towards himself.

“I don’t want to waste my time,” Viktor warns, “though I could never consider time spent with you to be wasted. But if you want to win the Grand Prix Final, you have to believe that you can do it, too.”

Yuuri exhales. “I don’t want you to waste your time either,” he admits. “I’m trying very hard, but I will do better.”

“But do you want the gold, Yuuri?” Viktor looks at him. “I want to hear you say that.”

“I do.” Yuuri’s back straightens. “I want the gold.”

 _And I want you_ , Viktor doesn’t say. _You, too, are gold — bright, precious, versatile_. The clouds roll past, bright sunlight hitting Yuuri’s face, burnishing his hair like onyx, setting his face aglow. Viktor’s breath feels suspended in his chest.

“Do you still trust me to stay?” he asks.

Yuuri’s smile is small but impossibly warm. “I don’t remember what I’ve done to get you to come here to try and coach me, but I’ll try my best to make you proud,” he says. “I want to be worthy of you, Viktor.”

 _But you already are_ , Viktor wants to say. _More than you even know_.

* * *

The summer after that passes in the blink of an eye, in the flutter of a firefly’s wings. They spend their mornings working at Ice Castle and their afternoons at the beach, chasing Makkachin around in the surf. Yuuri takes him to festivals, to busy city streets in Fukuoka, to the lush green countryside. The sweet taste of honeydew lingers in Viktor’s mouth, mingling with the sound of cicadas humming in the trees.

This August evening is muggy, with only the faint promise of a breeze. There’s a bead of sweat along Yuuri’s nape, just against the collar of his jinbei. “Help me,” he offers, pushing a comb into Viktor’s hand before kneeling, his head quietly bowed. Viktor starts to card the comb with trembling fingers. “I heard once that combing hair a hundred strokes each day helps with memory.”

Viktor feels a lump of something indescribable in his throat. _Remember me_ , he begs. But that’s like trying to stop the tide from claiming a sandcastle, from erasing his footprints on the shore. “Do you think you’d remember your routines better if I combed it a hundred times into you?” he wonders.

“Isn’t that why you give me videos?” Yuuri wonders, his eyes closed, neck arched almost swan-like out of his collar.

Viktor’s hands still briefly. “Yes,” he says,

Yuuri bows his head. “Thank you,” he says after a moment. “I’m sorry I give you so much trouble.”

“I don’t mind it,” admits Viktor. Each video reminds him, too, of what he’s doing here, why he’s stuck around so long. It’s more than just the night in Sochi, now — it’s wanting to make sure Yuuri does take gold. To prove himself to the world.

And to Yuuri, who now leans into his touch, eyes closing. Viktor runs the comb through his locks, and wishes on memories he knows he cannot retrieve.

* * *

Their first test comes at the regional competition. Yuuri was once leagues ahead of the competitors here, all of whom are still in high school, but with his injury it’s almost anyone’s guess if he’ll pull through like he did at Onsen on Ice.

“Moment of truth, huh?” wonders Takeshi Nishigori as they watch Yuuri warm up in slow circles around the rink. “See if this will be his comeback season after all.”

“I hope so,” says Viktor, though he can’t help but worry, especially as Yuuri wobbles as he attempts a jump. “He’s worked very hard for this.”

Yuuri doesn’t recognise the other skaters, especially young Kenjirou Minami whose short programme is modelled off of Yuuri’s own from Junior Worlds a couple years back. Viktor remembers the YouTube video, grainy quality but indescribably beautiful. Yuuri’s _Lohengrin_ was like art come alive. Minami’s homage to it is stunning in its own right.

Yuuri’s performance of Eros is softly sensual, almost hesitant. Viktor remembers the arch of his neck against the collar of his jinbei, and wonders — not for the first time — what it would be like to taste that creamy skin.

(He locks that thought up deep inside himself, tucking the key away for a distant future he knows he’ll never have. Being Yuuri’s coach is what matters now, no matter how many flecks of gold Viktor can count in his eyes, or how rosy his cheeks grow when he knows Viktor’s watching.)

Yuuri’s free skate debuts at this competition, and it’s a rough sketch, a work in progress — but it’s already beautiful, borne out of that same curiosity that shines in the step sequences of Eros. Yuuri may not remember him, but he’s etched deep in Yuuri’s muscle memory like these routines now, and that’s more important.

* * *

Stepping into the Grand Prix series as a coach feels strange, like a beloved old jumper suddenly shrinking in the wash. It should look the same and feel the same, but there’s something stiff and different about the fit this time.

Yuuri carefully studies the months’ worth of videos of him skating his routines every morning, and takes whatever extra practice time he can get rehearsing the steps. Viktor accompanies him to each of them with a thermos full of coffee and a heart full of apprehension, as the audience is larger here, the stakes much higher than before. To his relief, the rehearsals go without incident, and any falls Yuuri sustains don’t seem to put him out of commission.

Yuuri gets first place after the Short Programme in China and the worries bubble up harder than ever. It doesn’t help, of course, that he has some trouble remembering the ages of his competitors or the order in which they’re performing. With the added scrutiny that winning gives them, Viktor worries that the ISU will question whether or not Yuuri truly is cleared to compete if his amnesia becomes too obvious.

“Are you sure about this?” Phichit Chulanont asks him right before he’s about to go out for his free skate. “Making him compete so soon after the injury? He talks to me every night because it’s the last thing he remembers from the days before the accident, and I have to remind him that time passes sometimes, you know?”

“I tell him the same thing every day,” Viktor points out.

“It’s like a reverse _Groundhog Day_ ,” mutters Phichit. He claps Viktor’s shoulder. “But seriously, think about it. Why Yuuri? Is this really what he wants, or is it something you want _for_ him?”

Viktor mulls it over again later, in an underground parking lot with a teary-eyed Yuuri staring across from him. “I don’t know what I want,” Yuuri confesses. “But I know I don’t want you to go.”

 _Stay close to me, don’t leave._ Viktor remembers wishing those with each stroke of his comb in Yuuri’s hair on a warm summer night, remembers marking out those feelings on the beach at Hasetsu only for the waves to eat the words away. Yuuri’s hands tremble, and Viktor longs to hold them.

Yuuri returns to the ice, and somehow — impossibly — attempts a quad flip. And had this been any other world, any other story, Viktor would have tackled him onto the ice afterwards.

As it is, he waits for Yuuri to get off the ice before sweeping him up, and the kiss is no less sweeter despite the lack of ice against Yuuri’s back.

* * *

_Remember me._

Viktor stands on the beach in Hasetsu, a recently-recovered Makkachin next to him thumping his tail in contrition. He’d sent Yuuri messages for the days they’d be apart, but it somehow doesn’t feel like it’s enough. Even on the livestreams it seems Yuuri’s having a rough time of it at Rostelecom, though Yakov’s gruffness might have something to do with it.

When Yuuri qualifies for the Grand Prix Final by the skin of his teeth, the momentum of it hits Viktor like a wave to the gut all those miles away. What next, if they win the Final?

Is this still something Yuuri wants?

Or is it something he, who has rarely ever experienced anything close to defeat, wants as some vicarious experience through a student whose potential he’d only gleaned from a drunken night and a viral video?

There’s more now, too, with new feelings clouding and clogging the pathways of their daily routine together. Now that Viktor gets to mention in the videos that they’d at least kissed, Yuuri has no reservations about kissing him back. About holding his hands, and curling into his side, and everything else that would feel a lot nicer if it weren’t for the kinda unethical aspect of loving someone who regularly forgets about their relationship.

Is _that_ something Yuuri wants?

Or is that just Viktor projecting some old and now rather creepy bygone fantasy onto what they share now?

He meets Yuuri, finally, at Fukuoka Airport. Yuuri’s being escorted by an airline attendant, his expression a picture of concern. But when he sees Viktor, a wide smile lights up his face before he’s taking off for the exit, Viktor keeping pace until they reach the sliding doors together.

“I’ve always wanted to meet you!” Yuuri exclaims as he skids a couple steps away from Viktor, his eyes wide and curious and _beautiful_. Viktor feels a lump in his throat that he can’t swallow down, as Yuuri pulls out his phone and scrolls through the messages. “I don’t really remember you becoming my coach or kissing me in Beijing, but I guess that means I can give you this?”

He hugs Viktor, squeezing him in tight, tucking his head against Viktor’s collar.

“Have you gone to my parents’ inn in Hasetsu yet?” he asks cheerily. Viktor’s not sure where his tears are coming from, but they trickle into Yuuri’s scarf nonetheless.

“Yuuri,” he says quietly, extending a hand when they break away. Yuuri takes it easily — _too easily_ , Viktor’s brain reminds him. “I was wondering if I could be your coach until you retire.”

Yuuri considers it for a moment as he pets Makkachin, scratching him behind the ears. “Well, then, I guess that means I can’t retire,” he jokes.

Viktor hopes so, anyway.

* * *

It’s a miracle that they’re here in Barcelona. While Yuuri recovers from his jetlag, Viktor goes to the pool on the roof of their hotel, and listens to the city below.

It’s a miracle, how Yuuri has become his new purpose, his life and love. It’s a debt Viktor doesn’t know how to repay, nor does he know how to begin.

“I’m still unused to seeing you as a coach,” Christophe’s voice startles him as he surfaces in the pool. “How is Yuuri treating you?”

Viktor smiles. “Well,” he replies, because Christophe doesn’t need to know the details. “He’s been asleep ever since we got off the plane.” They’d had a near call with Spanish immigration when Yuuri had been confused as to why he was in Spain in the first place, but thankfully he had accepted that Viktor was his coach and not something much worse.

“He’s been acting odd all season,” Christophe notes over a glass of champagne. Viktor hopes the ferentic beating of his heart isn’t too audible. “He’s been more polite than usual. Even seems to have forgotten my first name.”

“I’m sure he hasn’t actually _done_ that,” Viktor blusters, and tries not to think about how Yuuri has to watch a video every morning to remember what Viktor truly is to him.

In Barcelona, Yuuri falls immediately into practices and rehearsals, spending hours on the ice at the cost of everything else. Viktor watches him running through his programmes from the sidelines, wondering why his heart seems to quicken at each jump and step. The sky is darkening against the windows of the rink when Yuuri finally decides to stop for dinner, and the way he easily slips his hand into Viktor’s makes his breath falter.

Viktor wants so much and yet so little — the world, but encapsulated within the confines of Yuuri Katsuki. They merge with the other couples at the Christmas market, where Viktor savours a cup of mulled wine while Yuuri looks on ahead with stars in his eyes.

They pass by a jewellery store, and Viktor looks longingly at the rings gleaming in the window, something inexplicable choking at him. Yuuri takes him onwards to a paella restaurant, but Viktor’s heart lingers back by the storefront for hours afterwards.

* * *

The morning of the short programme, Viktor wakes before Yuuri and heads down to the beach with his phone in his hands and his heart in his throat. He stands at the sea-wall looking out before the waves, and thinks about Hasetsu, and Saint Petersburg, and Lake Ladoga.

“ _What can I tell you this morning, Yuuri? You must be wondering why you are here again, tired and sore and apprehensive. It’s the day of the short programme, and you’re going to be performing Eros, a piece now etched inside you even though you have no idea what the music even sounds like. I wish I knew how to keep you from forgetting._ ”

“I can’t believe he’s made it this far.” Yurio’s voice cuts through Viktor’s recording. It’s followed by a swift kick to his back and a surly glower when Viktor turns to regard him coolly. “You really are trying to turn a piggy into a prince here.”

“Just goes to show Yuuri’s a stronger skater than you give him credit for,” Viktor replies, turning back towards the sea. Yuri settles on the sea wall next to him.

“Whatever. He’s still gonna lose if you don’t clue him in to what he’s supposed to be doing.” Yuri shoves his hands in his pockets, tucking his hair into his hoodie. “Better get on that soon.”

Viktor sighs, watching the tide recede. _I wish I knew how to preserve the Yuuri you have become, though you don’t remember him._

_Every morning you reset to the Yuuri you once were, and I can’t stop it._

* * *

The sandcastle crumbles. The footprints vanish. Yuuri skates Eros, but it’s not good enough. Too mechanical, too wooden, like he’s just copying the video of him skating it before without any thought towards the presentation.

Viktor smiles and tells him they’ll just do better in the free skate, but Yuuri doesn’t seem to hear him. Even as the other skaters rise to new heights or fall to new lows, Yuuri watches them with glassy eyes, taking in the competition without heart, without life.

The apprehension curls in Viktor’s gut. The edge of his resolve trembles in foreboding.

“Could you do me a favour?” Yuuri asks him that night, bathed in the golden glow of the hotel lamps. He looks like he’s been deep in thought ever since Viktor entered the shower. Viktor’s hands pause on the towel, his breath faltering.

“Anything for you,” he offers.

“After the Final, please forget me.”

The towel slips, and so does Viktor’s heart — out of Yuuri’s hands and onto the floor.

“Why?” the words fall out of him before he can stop them.

Yuuri looks down at his hands. “I don’t want to keep you away from the ice any longer,” he murmurs. “I can only go so far without my memory, and we both know that. It’s better for everyone if you just let me forget you.”

Viktor only realises he’s crying when he feels the tears rolling down his cheeks, dropping onto his feet. Yuuri leans forward, almost fascinated. Inexplicably, anger boils in Viktor’s gut.

“Why would you want to do that?” he demands around the lump in his throat. “I thought — I thought you didn’t want me to go.”

“You deserve to be remembered,” Yuuri replies simply. “You deserve to be with someone who doesn’t forget you every morning.”

The tide is rising higher along the beach, washing away everything in its wake. Viktor clings to the precipice, unwilling to look back at the icy darkness of his life before Yuuri. “What makes you think that?” he wonders, even as his fingers weaken, and the mountain of everything they had built together begins to crumble towards the roaring sea.

“I just do,” says Yuuri simply. “I don’t know you, but I love you. And that’s not fair to you at all.”

The waves fill his ears with whitewater, erase the shoreline from where he stands. With a final breath, Viktor lets go of the precipice, and falls.

* * *

Yakov texts him moments before Yuuri steps on the ice. _They’ve caught Yuuri’s saboteur_ , he says, _from Nationals last year. Did you know_?

 _Yes_ , Viktor admits. _He’s shown a lot of improvement since then. The ISU cleared him._

 _Doesn’t mean you’re allowed to push him like this_ , Yakov replies. _Still, he’s done well for someone recovering from trauma like that. Please take care of him._

Viktor’s heart leaps into his throat, especially as Yuuri squeezes his hand concernedly, his eyes questioning. “I think you can prove yourself wrong,” he blusters, moving his phone screen away from Yuuri’s inquisitive gaze. “I know you don’t remember, but you’ve skated this perfectly before.”

Yuuri looks down at the barrier between them. “I hope so,” he says, before pushing away to deafening cheers. _Look my way_ , he mouths. Viktor could never do anything else.

Yuuri sets a new world record and wins the silver. In the crowd, the ISU security team escorts his saboteur away, to meet whatever justice awaits them. But these triumphs taste bittersweet to Viktor, as Yuuri’s last words echo in his memory: _Forget me_. _Let me go_.

Viktor has never wanted to do anything less, and most of his childhood summers had been at Yakov’s bootcamp. “What do you think?” he asks Yuuri shortly before the exhibition skate. “Of your medal. And me coaching you.”

“I don’t know if I have it in me for another season,” Yuuri admits. “I think I’d like a little more time to get the rest of my memory back, so we don’t have to do this next time I compete.”

Viktor nods. “I understand,” he says. “It was a privilege to coach you this season.” And to have been more, in the smallest of ways, but Yuuri won’t remember that when Viktor’s gone.

Yuuri goes out on the ice, and the familiar refrain of “Stay Close to Me” plays. Viktor watches, riveted, as Yuuri dances through the steps as easily as breathing, and wishes he _could_.

* * *

Months later, Viktor stands on the pebbled shore of a vast lake, where the early morning mists are just starting to recede. On some days, the waters stretch towards the horizon like the sea, seemingly infinite, unendingly beautiful.

The smell of cinnamon and cloves wafts through the air towards him, envelops him in memories he only knows because of the photos on the dacha walls. A grandmother who doesn’t exist anymore holds him tight, calls him her favourite, her darling, her Vitya, and as much as Viktor wants to remember her, he can’t.

“ _Good morning Yuuri_ ,” a tinny voice echoes from beside him, causing him to startle. “ _I’m Viktor, your coach for this Grand Prix season. You might be wondering why you don’t remember me, or asking me to coach you. That’s because you lost your memory after sustaining a concussion from Japanese Nationals. But you still remembered my free skate routine to ‘Stay Close to Me’, and when I saw your video of that, I knew I had to come and coach you._ ”

Viktor turns, hardly daring to hope. He’d erased all of the messages he’d sent Yuuri before he left Hasetsu, and could have sworn every copy of those videos had been destroyed. Yet there he is, holding up his phone, on which Viktor’s own face beams as he continues to speak.

“ _You’re like music itself when you move on the ice, Yuuri. You’ve already done so much, but there’s still so much potential left in you. I’ve been captivated by you ever since I met you at Sochi, and there’s nothing I’d like more than to see you win gold at this Grand Prix Final_.”

“I won silver, didn’t I?” asks Yuuri. Viktor’s heart falters. “I kept on dreaming about you, so Plisetsky gave me this video, and Phichit and Giacometti helped me find you.”

“You said you wanted to forget me,” says Viktor, a little defensively. “That I should be with someone who remembered me.” _That I am just footprints along your beach, a sandcastle to be swept away into the tide_.

Yuuri looks down at his feet, the wind whipping at his hair. “I don’t remember that,” he says. “And I know I won’t remember this, either. But being with you felt _right_ , in ways I couldn’t quite put to words. I don’t know you, but when you weren’t there it felt like part of me had gone missing, and I knew I needed to find it.”

Viktor’s heart soars. With trembling hands, he steps closer, one hand reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Yuuri’s ear. Yuuri shivers, arching into the touch with a small smile. Viktor has never felt so warm.

“I know you so well,” he says. “And if it means having to make you fall in love with me every morning for the rest of my life, I’d do it. I just want to make sure that’s what you’d like, too.”

“I’m not afraid to fall,” breathes Yuuri. Overhead, the birds cry, the ripples of the lake lap against their shoes, and Viktor can almost taste his lips. “Not when you’re already there.”

Viktor laughs, as the distance between them vanishes, and his heart soars.

**Author's Note:**

> Of all affliction taught a lover yet,  
> 'Tis sure the hardest science to forget!  
> How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense,  
> And love th' offender, yet detest th' offence?  
> How the dear object from the crime remove,  
> Or how distinguish penitence from love?  
> Unequal task! a passion to resign,  
> For hearts so touch'd, so pierc'd, so lost as mine.  
> — “[Eloisa to Ableard](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44892/eloisa-to-abelard)” by Alexander Pope
> 
> This was commissioned by the amazing [kailuwowie](https://kailuwowie.tumblr.com/)! Thank you so much for your support.
> 
> Yell about Viktuuri with me on [Tumblr](https://omgkatusdonplease.tumblr.com/)!


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